The 5 Easy Steps to Make Your Business Goals a Reality, Every Time

Strategy begins with your deciding exactly what you want to accomplish in the key areas of your business life. Once you know your goals in each area, you can then decide upon the best steps you can take to get there.

The GOSPA Model

You can use the GOSPA Model as a guide for strategic planning. These five key thinking tools form the basis for successful business operations.

Begin With The End In Mind

The first letter, “G” stands for Goals. These are the ultimate results that you want to achieve. Your goals are the end targets that you aim at throughout your business year or planning period. Your goals are your sales, profits, growth rate, market share, or percentage of return on assets, equity, investment or sales. Goals are always measurable. What are yours?

Steps on the Staircase
The second letter, “O” stands for Objectives. These are the steps you will have to

take to achieve your goals. They are like the rungs on the ladder to get to the top.
Your business objectives can be specific rates of return from advertising, levels of sales of certain products and services, number of items shipped and billed, monies collected and cost levels for certain activities. A lower defect rate or a higher sale amount per customer can be objectives on the path to achieving the main corporate goals. What are your interim objectives?

How to Get There

The letter “S” stands for Strategies. These are the different approaches that you can take to achieve your objectives and reach your goals. For example, achieving a specific level of profitability will require producing and selling specific quantities of products or services to a specific market in a specific way. There are many different ways to go about accomplishing these objectives. The way you choose is your strategy, and may determine the success or failure of your enterprise.

Do you produce, market, sell, deliver yourself, or do you outsource some part of the process? Do you sell direct, via retail, direct mail, catalog or Internet? Do you charge more, charge less, up-sell, cross-sell or discount? Do you enter certain markets and abandon others? What is your strategy? Is it working?

Planning For Success

The letter “P” stands for Plans. These are your blueprints for achieving your goals. Your plans are composed of step-by-step lists of exactly what you will do, day by day, to get from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. Plans are always broken down by sequence and priority.
Some things have to be done before others can be done. Some things are more important than others in achieving the goal or objective. When your plan is organized by sequence and priority, you can accomplish much more in less time.

Business life consists almost entirely of projects, one after the other. A project can be defined as a multi-task job, a job made up of many small jobs, each of which has to be done properly to complete the larger task. Your ability to plan, organize and complete multi-task jobs, ever larger and more complex, is the most important single element of your success, in any field.

Develop a Bias for Action

The last letter in the GOSPA process, “A”, stands for Actions. These are the specific tasks that you are going to complete to carry out the plans to implement the strategies to accomplish the objectives to achieve your goals.
Every important task must be clear, measurable and time bounded. It must be assigned to a specific person who is qualified to perform the task correctly, on time and on budget. What gets measured gets done.

The 7 Steps to Doubling the Performance of Your Employees

There are seven steps you can take every day to increase your employee's productivity, performance and output. These seven steps, practiced until they become ingrained habits of thought and action, will enable you and your employees to double productivity, increase your income, and move ahead faster than almost any other things you can do.

Step One: Set clear, specific, written goals for each important area of your life. Make them measurable and time bounded, with deadlines and sub-deadlines. Make plans for their accomplishment and work on your key goals every day.

Step Two: Think on paper. Make a list of activities for each day, before you begin. The best time to make a list is the night before, the last thing before you end the workday, or before you go to bed at night. This allows your subconscious mind to work on your list as you sleep, often giving you ideas and insights for greater accomplishment when you wake up.

Step Three: Set priorities on your list before you begin. Apply the 80/20 Rule and select the top 20% of your tasks to work on.

Use the ABCDE Method as well. Go over your list and write an A next to your most important tasks. Write a B next to your second most important tasks. Write a C next to your unimportant tasks. Write a D next to tasks that you can delegate, and an E next to tasks that you can eliminate. Do this before you begin working.

If you have more than one A task, organize them as A-1, A-2, A-3, and so on. Do the same with your B tasks. The rule is that you never do a B or C task if there is an A task still not completed.

Step Four: Practice creative procrastination on your list, and in your work. Since you are never going to be able to do everything on your list, you are going to have to procrastinate on some tasks. Decide in advance to procrastinate on those tasks of little value or importance. Otherwise, you will unconsciously find yourself procrastinating on tasks that can make a real difference in your life.

Step Five: Select your most important task, your “A-1,” and discipline yourself to start on that job first thing when you begin work. This task is often worth more than many, if not all, of the other items on your list.

Step Six: Practice single-handling with your most important task. Once you have started work on it, resolve to work at it non-stop until it is complete. Concentrate 100% on the one job that represents the most valuable use of your time. Discipline yourself to persist without diversion or distraction until it is done.

Step Seven: Develop a sense of urgency, a bias for action. Move quickly at your work, and throughout the day. Pick up the pace. Develop a faster tempo in everything you do. Get going and keep going quickly.

The faster you move, the more work you get done, and the better you feel. The more you do, the faster you learn and the better you get. The faster you move, the better you get, and the more you get done, the greater will the contribution you make, the more you will get paid, and the faster you will be promoted. By moving faster, you will put your whole life and career onto the fast track.